Meyer, Herman have Ohio State offense running at warp speed

Sep. 16, 2013

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Written by

Jon Spencer

CentralOhio.com

Ohio State's Devin Smith catches a pass from Kenny Guiton to beat Cal's Isaac Lapite for a touchdown, one of two TDs Smith scored as the Buckeyes shot out to a 21-0 lead in their 52-34 victory. / Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports

OSU By The Numbers

• 3: Consecutive games with at least 40 points, first time that’s happened since 2005 when Buckeyes did it in four straight games. • 3: Games of over 100 yards in receptions for Devin Smith, who had 149 yards on his three catches vs. Cal. • 4: Longer winning streaks at the school than current 15-gamer, which is best in the nation. Longest is 22 games from 1967-69. • • 7: Consecutive wins over Cal since losing the first meeting in 1921 Rose Bowl. • 7: Plays from scrimmage of at least 20 yards vs. the Bears. • 7: Tackles by freshman defensive end Joey Bosa on Saturday, a career high. • 10: Solo tackles made Saturday by linebacker Ryan Shazier, a career-high. He finished with 12 tackles and a sack. • 41: Years since the Buckeyes last played in Berkeley before Saturday’s 52-34 win over Cal. • 68: Points scored in the first quarter this season, including 24 on Saturday. • 90: Yards on the TD pass from Kenny Guiton to Devin Smith on Saturday, longest play from scrimmage in school history and longest pass play for an Urban Meyer-coached team. • 608: Yards gained vs. Cal, a school-best in the Urban Meyer Era.

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If you blinked while watching college football on Saturday, you might have missed that California and Oregon weren’t the only teams on the West Coast that were moving at warp speed.

Ohio State, it seems, can run with the best of them.

Let’s give credit where credit is due: If not for Cal’s “Bear Raid” attack — and the fear it creates — we might not have been treated to one of the more entertaining displays of fast-forward offense in recent memory.

But that shouldn’t take credit away from fifth-year senior quarterback Kenny Guiton, who won the Walter Camp Player of the Week award after filling in admirably for injured starter Braxton Miller in the Buckeyes’ 52-34 win.

And let’s not forget about Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, who implored his offense to hurry up from the sidelines.

“I was watching some of that Oregon game (which the Ducks won 59-14 against Tennessee) and we do want to be more of that up-tempo team this year,” Meyer said. “You saw more of the tempo (offensive coordinator) Tom Herman wants me to (do) more and more. I sometimes slow him down a bit.”

Apparently, Meyer only was moving at the speed of sound when he was winning national championships at Florida. Herman wants to move at the speed of light, which seems plausible from what we’ve seen so far from freshman Dontre Wilson.

You might have missed it — mesmerized by the 52 points, the 608 yards of offense and the four touchdown-zero interception performance by Guiton — but the score within the score was 90-87.

Cal’s offense was limited to seven fewer plays than it averages; the Bears ran just three more than the Buckeyes. That’s significant because Ohio State, in scoring 40 and 42 points in its first two games, averaged 69 plays.

More plays equals more points equals more excitement, right?

It’s not easy to outshine a Sonny Dykes-designed offense, but the Buckeyes managed to do so. They did it in blinding fashion, running 26 plays to take a 24-7 lead in the first quarter and out-snapping Cal 45-37 in the second half.

Northwestern, which could find itself in one of these high-speed shootouts when it hosts the Buckeyes on Oct. 5, beat Cal 44-30 to open the season. However, the Bears outgained the Wildcats 549-508 yards and ran 99 plays — 29 more than the Wildcats.

The difference wasn’t Northwestern’s offense. The difference was two pick-sixes thrown by Cal freshman Jared Goff.

Dykes came to Cal from Louisiana Tech, where his 2012 team averaged 51.5 points and 117 plays. It ran 101 plays against Texas A&M and put up 57 points. It took a Manziellian effort from the Aggies and their Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback to eke out a 59-57 victory.

Getting out of the blocks faster than Cal obviously was priority No. 1 for Ohio State. It’s dicey enough flying cross-country to play your first road game without your Heisman contender. You don’t want to take the chance of your backup needing to play catchup.

For all the fireworks early — three series, three TD passes — the key might have been the 15-play, 80-yard drive in the third quarter that resulted in Guiton’s fourth TD pass.

It not only bumped Ohio State’s lead to 45-20 but gave the Buckeyes’ defense a chance to catch its breath.

That was more of a traditional Ohio State drive. The new tradition Meyer wants to start will look more like their hurry-up approach in the red zone, the four fourth-down conversions — including two on the goal line — and, in general, an aggressive, accelerated pace that seemed to confound the Cal defense even though it sees that tempo every day in practice.

A year ago, the Buckeyes averaged 69.8 offensive snaps per game, which ranked them in the 50s in college football. Oregon, the team most associated with up-tempo attacks, was ninth with 81.5 snaps.

Maybe the Bucks will become more like the Ducks.

Saturday’s whirlwind effort bumped Ohio State’s average to 75 snaps. That’s 14 more plays a game than it averaged in 2011 when overmatched coordinator Jim Bollman set offensive football back decades.

With FCS foe Florida A&M up next, the over-under on plays by the Buckeyes should be 150.

Meyer probably would call that observation “silly,” his term for a question posed after Saturday’s win: “Is this what he was hoping the offense would look like?”

It was reminiscent of the time former Ohio State coach John Cooper was asked if he’d like to have aptly-named Rocket Ismail, Notre Dame’s game-breaking 1990 Heisman runner-up.

“Would I like to have the Rocket?” screeched Cooper, as if to say ... who wouldn’t?

Meyer will settle for getting suspended tailback Carlos Hyde back this week. For his sake, and ours, he’d better get up to speed in a hurry.